I haven’t taken a proper break yet post sale of The Inquisitr, but I’ve taken a few days off reading and sorting a few things out. My plans to sit on a beach for a couple of weeks have been delayed to late July, so although I’m still in semi-retirement for the time being, I thought I might start writing here again on duncanriley.com far more regularly than I have for years.
But what about?
Twitter is for the more mundane things in life in 2011, so I won’t bore you with that side. I still have to deal with a number of personal issues but being able to not work and not worry about money for the months, even if I play it conservatively, years ahead, helps a bloody lot.
I guess it comes as no surprise to anyone who read the press release on The Inquisitr sale that I’ve already worked out what I’m doing next. I have no intention though of disclosing what that is. I own over 100 domains, so if anyone wants to play detective, you won’t find an answer. I could be going into anything from porn through to online analytics, but it naturally won’t be any of those things.
I will confess three things though
1. The Inquisitr will do much better without me, and I hope and indeed perhaps know that it will thrive under new ownership.
Because of my personal life distractions (not the least was having to deal with a divorce and custody issues) I haven’t given it the time and attention it really deserved for some time. That site should have been pumping out 12-15 million page views by now had I been running it more hands on (and I’d expanded the content as was in my original plan)
2. I really need a break. I had a semi-break post b5media, but never actually stopped working in a proper sense. Bar a week in Cairns and a couple of work related trips to the States (with a coupe of side trips) I haven’t really stopped working properly online since 2005-2006ish.
3. I was starting to become a bit bored by The Inquisitr, although this wasn’t the reason for the sale, it was profitable and ran itself, what more could you ask for in a site.
I want to address point three though in more detail: it’s not that I disliked the content on the site at all, indeed even today The Inquisitr produces high quality content, particularly in tech areas and sport, that people often ignore. Even the celebrity content (although not always to everyone’s taste) was often first rate and we were always quick on stories.
But I knew what worked, and the content that worked best wasn’t particularly in areas I was passionate about or held a great deal of interest in personally. But one example: our biggest day ever came from me writing one post on the Royal Wedding, then me subsequently live blogging it.
I am taking it easy for a while, but in the mean time I thought I might start to write here about blogging, my thoughts on the industry, its ethics, and even managing a site. It will be (I would hope) both interesting, and will help me get my head around my next project…without disclosing what it is naturally.
I’ll only say that I’m naturally going to return to online publishing, and I’m going back to my roots. Something I can dig my teeth into so to speak, and a new challenge (and anyone who knows me knows that I thrive on new challenges.) Whether it works or not time will only tell, but time to prepare and plan is something I now have plenty of.
Stay tuned for more, and thanks to everyone for their support and well wishes.
I can honestly say in the last few months (between the personal issues and the site sale) that I am truly humbled by the support I’ve received. I may have had a reputation as being a bastard who upset people at a time (think TechCrunch) but I take solace in knowing that many of you may actually find some value in me.
Duncan.
